


Babysitting

by rvst



Series: Detective Lucas [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Pretty Little Liars
Genre: Gen, In Vino Veritas, Trope Bingo Round 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 19:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2518793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rvst/pseuds/rvst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Did you mean to be a vicious killing machine?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Babysitting

The McCullers parents, Ruby didn't see the need to learn their names, planned to go on a second honeymoon. To deter any 'gentle-lady' callers to the house, they asked Detective Lucas to watch over their daughter while they were gone. Nothing too close, just to make sure their precious baby wasn't defiled and the house remained in one piece while they were gone.

Then Spencer Hastings had a public screaming match with Paige over something Ruby was unaware of, and supervising from a distance became welcoming her young friend into her cabin for a week. Ruby was starting to hate the Hastings girl with a feral burning passion. Not only for petty reasons, the girl featured frequently in many of the town's most recent police reports.

Ruby still wasn't convinced that she hadn't killed her sister's fiancé. She understood why Spencer would want to kill him, however she had a badge now and that meant disapproving of justifiable homicide.

The McCullers' also didn't inform Ruby that they would be leaving the night before the stated date of their holiday to make the most of their time off. Which caused a massive problem.

After a long week of swimming through the second most ridiculous town in the world's police reports, Ruby was starting to see the appeal of binge drinking. She drank excessively alone in her cabin on a Friday night. She knew she was a chatty drunk and really didn't want to have to worry about accidentally blurting out all of her many secrets and half-truths.

Then there was a knock on her door. At ten o'clock at night. In the middle of the woods.

She figured it was teenagers and ignored it. Then Ruby heard two familiar voices having a hushed argument outside her door and groaned in anticipation.

Ruby stood up, wobbling slightly and slapped her face a few times to shake of the effects of her mostly-gone bottle of tequila. She took slow and deliberate steps towards her door, and unlocked it while keeping her free hand on her ever-present gun. Her ears had been fooled before, and while drunk every advantage she could have over an attacker was a blessing.

She pulled the door open to reveal Paige and her father. He had a heavy hand on her shoulder and she plainly looked like she would very much prefer to be eaten by the ground she stood on.

“I hate to do this to you but,” Mr McCullers finished with an awkward grin. “The missus and I were hoping to get an early start tomorrow, so we would really appreciate it if you took Paige now rather than in the morning.”

Ruby wanted to deck him and his ridiculous smile. One slight problem of not being able to tell which of the three men in front of her to punch stayed her hand. She plastered a pleasant smile on her face and stepped back from the doorway. Paige shuffled in and waved goodbye to her father.

“Have a nice trip!” Ruby wished, way too loudly. Mr McCullers winced, but left anyway. Ruby allowed her face to droop and turned to glare at her guest. “Why?”

Paige shrugged. “I think they're going to drive through the night. How drunk are you?”

“Who cares how drunk I am! Your parents can't trust you with one night alone!” Ruby retaliated, though it did nothing to ease Paige's amusement. Ruby growled at her, her eyes flashed gold for a moment. Paige stumbled backwards and fell onto the couch.

“Whoa, what the-”

“What? You've seen them do that before, right?” A hazy vision of the first time they met floated through Ruby's foggy mind, blurred and with the sounds muffled. Paige just tried not to have a mental breakdown. Between DiLaurentis and Caleb, she was confident in her ability to deal with the weirdest crap the world could throw at her.

“It was four in the morning,” she answered, slipping her backpack off her shoulder. Paige concentrated on keeping her breathing even, a panic attack would not help the situation. “And it was like two months ago, I've convinced myself I was hallucinating. Would not be a first.”

Ruby whined, Paige absolutely did not think the phrase 'like a dog', and tripped over her own feet to collapse next to her charge on the couch. She rubbed her face, trying to rouse it into feeling.

“Why were you fighting with the Hastings girl?” Ruby deflected expertly. At least, Ruby thought it was an expertly carried out deflection. The slurring of her words did not help matters at all. Paige slapped her on the arm.

“Not relevant!” Paige hit her again. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“At the moment? Tequila and a little bit of rum,” said Ruby before laughing. Paige raised her hand to smack her in the already red spot on her arm. “Okay! No need for further violence You will not win that fight by the way.”

Paige raised her eyebrows in disbelief, “you are hammered and no offence but you have at least ten years on me.”

“I'm a trained officer of the law!” Ruby exclaimed. She lunged for the bottle of tequila. Paige grabbed her shoulder and forced her back into the couch. “And I am so much more than ten years older than you, silly little girl.”

“How much then, grandmother?” Paige goaded. The tequila bottle was lifted off the coffee table by Paige as she searched the cabin for the second bedroom. “I'll give you fifteen years, but there is no way on Earth you're much older than thirty!”

Ruby pouted at the yelling coming from her guest room. “I haven't actually had a chance to do the math!”

“Why would you need to-No! Never mind, I don't care, why do your eyes do the thing?” Paige returned to the room, sans tequila. Ruby whined again.

“I'll tell you if you give the bottle back,” bargained Ruby, narrowing her eyes at the thief teenager in her home. Paige returned her glare, yet turned to get the bottle back anyway. “Victory!”

She returned, flinging the bottle at Ruby's head. The older woman caught it easily. “When you're done explaining the eyes, you can start on how the hell you just did that!”

“Uh, magic?” Ruby drained the remaining tequila and threw the bottle into her recycling bin. It landed perfectly inside the container. Paige stared at it with barely concealed disbelief. “Lots of magic?”

“That's not an explanation,” pushed Paige, crossing the living area to access the fridge. “Or it is and you need to elaborate. 'Magic' is very vague.”

“Yes. Yes it is,” Ruby saluted sarcastically. Paige helped herself to a soda while Ruby sat in thought. “I think I'm about fifty-three years old.”

Paige calmly opened her drink and returned to her position on the couch. “Magic is very magical.”

“I'm also Little Red Riding Hood. Though I would love to meet the wolf that can scare my Granny,” Ruby rambled. “She does have the advantage of being a werewolf like me, that probably helps.”

“Sure, makes sense.” Paige sipped at her drink. “So you're the Big, Bad Wol-”

Ruby's arm shot out and smacked a hand over Paige's mouth. She shushed her over-dramatically. “Say it, and die.”

“You're like a superhero then?”

“I'm a monster once a month,” Ruby admitted morosely.

“No, pretty sure you're a superhero,” Paige disagreed, folding her arms resolutely.

“I am a vicious killing machine!”

“Did you mean to be a vicious killing machine?”

“No?”

“Superhero!”

“You're grounded!”


End file.
